Fierce hunger reigns within my breast, I had not dreamt that this whole world,
Crushed in the hand of God, could yield
Such bitter essence of unrest, Such pain as Sorrow now hath hurled
Out of its dreadful heart, unsealed!
Each sobbing breath is but a cry, My heart-strokes knells of agony,
And my whole brain has but one thought
That nevermore through life shall I (Save in the ache of memory)
Touch hands with thee, who now art naught!
Through the whole void of night I search, So dumbly crying out to thee;
But thou are not; and night's vast throne
Becomes an all stupendous church With star-bells knelling unto me
Who in all space am most alone!
An hungered, to the shore I creep, Perchance some comfort waits on me
From the old Sea's eternal heart;
But lo! from all the solemn deep, Far voices out of mystery
Seem questioning why we are apart!
"Where'er I go I am alone Who once, through thee, had all the world.
My breast is one whole raging pain
For that which was, and now is flown Into the Blank where life is hurled
Where all is not, nor is again!"
- ↑ These stanzas I found, in pencil, upon a piece of foolscap gummed in behind the fly-leaf of the MS. They have all the appearance of having been written at an earlier date than the Manuscript.--Ed.